The peak of Sentai Mountain reaches high above the clouds. Tales tell of a legendary civilization that once ruled the planet from its peak, leading humanity in a golden age of progress. But after an age of prosperity, the Golden civilization faded and disappeared. Thousands of years later, a group of settlers braved the perils of the lower mountain in order to start a new life away from the post-apocalyptic turmoil of the surface world. They searched for the legendary home of the Golden civilization, but were unable to locate it, so they built their own home and forged a new life for themselves above the clouds.
The mountain dwellers, as the settlers began to call themselves, grew rapidly, expanding over more and more of the mountain. They began a peaceful era of healing and building. Using scraps of leftover knowledge from the surface world, and bits of technology found in Golden age ruins, the mountain dwellers achieved their greatest success. To help their still small civilization with the daunting task of building a home out of the side of a mountain, they build powerful robots to help with the work, imbuing them with a rudimentary artificial intelligence. The robots proved to be an invaluable asset, capable of doing the tough jobs that humans wouldn't survive. Their only downside was that their intelligence level required constant supervision. But that changed when they built Meca One, the first truly intelligent AI. He was given command over the robots in the lower mines, the most dangerous ones, and left to work on his own, slowly learning from his experiences.
After a hundred years, Meca One rebelled. The robots repurposed their mining machines and launched an attack on the mountain dwellers. Meca One was smart, but despite that he was still inexperienced. His attack was quickly halted. In desperation, he launched a desperate last ditch effort to destroy his creators. He split the mountain in half.
Meca One and his robots were thrown off the mountain within a week of his last attack, the human's onslaught fueled by rage and pain at the great loss caused by the splitting. The robots disappeared into the Gorge, the pit between the two halves of the mountain. The mountain dwellers vowed never to create robots such as Meca One again, and began the long process of rebuilding everything that had been lost in the split.
In ten years, all had almost been forgotten. Countless bridges had been built to span the rift between the north and south halves of the mountain. Life was returning to normal as work continued on both sides of Sentai mountain.
But everything changed when Meca One returned from the Gorge…
Sentai Mountain
0300
Ganchu Bridge
Ha-Ya-To really needed to scratch his head. It had been itching for the last ten minutes and was slowly driving him crazy. That was the worst part about guard duty; being locked inside a battle machine for hours on end, unable to do so many things that people took for granted. Like scratching an itch. Totally impossible while locked inside a half ton of hydraulics, weapons, and armor. The machine was almost cool enough to make up for it, though. Ha-Ya-To's rig made him stand about nine feet tall, and it was one of the smaller types. He could feel the controls for his mass driver cannon in his left hand, and his robotic suit matched his every movement flawlessly. And best of all, he knew that there was enough power packed into the battle machine's foot thrusters to give him one heck of a ride.
"Are you paying attention?" a voice asked.
Ha-Ya-To spun to see Swift giving him a funny look, his head and chest visible through the large armored visor of his identical Gate Defender.
"Of course!" Ha-Ya-To said with a grin. "You know me; I'm always focused." He subconsciously tried to scratch again and hit his robotic hand against his cockpit. Swift grinned.
"Nice to know." He said. Both pilots broke away from each other to resume their patrol routes.
Like most of the bridges that spanned the chasm between the North and South Mountain, Ganchu Bridge was actually a network of bridges. It was an array of five parallel pathways, arranged in a square with the main bridge in the middle. Each of the supplementary bridges was connected to Ganchu-Main by ramps at various points along its length. Just up ahead, Ha-Ya-To could see the ramp hub that marked to farthest point of their patrol route. His radio kicked in.
"Dragon squad, this is Exo-Central. We are picking up movement on the South Mountain near your bridge. Stay alert."
Ha-Ya-To keyed his radio.
"Central, this is Dragon-1" He said, "Thanks for the heads up; we'll be ready." He switched to his squad channel.
"Look alive, Dragon, we have possible incoming."
"This is Dragon-2, Copy." Swift replied.
"This is Dragon-3, Copy."
"Dragon-4, Copy."
Ha-Ya-To nodded at the report, then turned and headed up the ramp to his left at a jog, towards the Ganchu-1 sub-bridge. He glanced down at his instruments on the way up, checking to see if command had sent any radar contacts, but there weren't any. Four more steps, and he reached the top of the ramp.
Ganchu-1 was much smaller than the main bridge, but still a good hundred feet across. Several old cars still littered its surface, leftovers from before the rebellion, and would provide partial cover, but not much. Ha-Ya-To shrugged, figuring it would be as much a hindrance to them as it would be to him. If they even show up He thought to himself. He couldn't think of any reason why the robots would launch an attack on this bridge; it was not particularly close to anywhere important, and not in a particularly good place for a larger scale operation. The robots only ever attacked when they had something to gain. It's probably just another false alarm, then.
Ha-Ya-To started forwards slowly, squinting into the perpetual thick fog of the chasm, looking for any signs of the enemy. Nothing. Now comes the waiting part. Ha-Ya-To piloted his Gate Defender over to an overturned car to get some cover. Minutes ticked by slowly. Finally, he put the Defender into sentry mode. He could feel the machine locking up around him, freeing him to relax without it falling over. There was nothing he liked less than sitting around waiting for something that might not even happen. Finally, he radioed base.
"Central, this is Dragon-1: Do you have any radar buoys in the air to ID the possible incoming targets?"
"Negative, Dragon-1, our last buoy moved out of range just as we caught sight of the activity."
Ha-Ya-To perked up slightly. If the robots were going to attack, they would probably do it right after a buoy passed. The odds of a skirmish were higher than he thought.
"We've got robots!" Dragon-3 yelled, and half second later Ha-Ya-To saw a green flash from behind him.
"Reactivate!" Ha-Ya-To yelled, his voice command triangulating with his mental command. The Gate Defender's power surged as it brought functions back on line.
"Fire Vultures, flying under Ganchu Main!" Three yelled, firing another round. The next second, two Battle Machines appeared from under the main bridge, flying at breakneck speed towards Swift and Dragon-4's position on Main.
"There's two more under Ganchu-2!" Swift called. Ha-Ya-To turned, and brought his canon to bear on the Vultures screaming along under the bridge opposite him. He could hear Swift and Two open fire on the Vultures bearing down on them, but held his fire as he carefully tracked the other two. Easy does it… He fired. A glowing green projectile soared through the air, and slammed into the lead machine's shoulder. Fragments from both the round and the armor flew into the air, and the machine swerved wildly for a moment before losing altitude. A second round from Three plowed into its torso before it could regain control.
The second Vulture veered sharply to its right, lining up with Ha-Ya-To. He grinned. I suppose that's what I get for messing with his friend. He lined up a second shot.
"Watch out, Ha-Ya-To, there's more of them!"
Ha-Ya-To spun around at Swifts yell, and instantly brought his arms up for protection. Another Fire Vulture had landed on his bridge, and fired at point blank range. Flames engulfed his Gate Defender, obscuring his view. Even through the armor Ha-Ya-To could feel the heat, and he knew he couldn't last long. He coiled back his right arm and drove it forward with all his might at where he had last seen the Vulture. He felt it connect. Flames spewed every direction as the Vulture's flamethrower was forced off target. Oh yeah Ha-Ya-To thought, a grin plastered across his face. He stepped forward, keeping at point blank range with his opponent, and brought his mass driver to bear on the cockpit. He could see the bronze colored robot inside, rebalancing his machine, winked at it, and pulled the trigger.
The mass driver canon was a very simple weapon system; it merely did what its name suggested, and the cockpit of the Fire Vulture exploded under the force of the solid slug being propelled into it. The Battle Machine dropped like a rock. Ha-Ya-To turned back towards where the others were fighting, the adrenaline fueled grin still on his face. One of the first Fire Vultures lay burning on Ganchu Main, just in front of where Swift was covering for Dragon-4. Two's Gate Defender lay smoldering on its back. Ha-Ya-To's breath caught. Swift's voice sounded through the radio.
"Four is down, but still alive" He said, "I need some cover for the evac!"
Dragon-3 replied.
"Negative, Two, I'm engaged on Ganchu-3."
"I'm on my way!" Ha-Ya-To said, running towards the edge of the bridge. He leapt off the edge, launching himself across the gap between bridges, and landed forty feet below on Ganchu Main. He grunted at the force of the impact, but quickly sprinted to an overturned semi near the center of the bridge. Two fireballs narrowly missed him before he slid safely behind cover. He was now in between Swift and the robots.
"I got you covered, Swift, begin evac now." He ordered. He stepped out of cover, and fired two rounds in quick succession at the robot Battle Machines. There were two of them advancing through the open, apparently sacrificing cover in order to try and eliminate Swift and Four before they got help. Both rounds ricocheted off the lead Machine's armor, and Ha-Ya-To dodged back behind his cover before they got a chance to flame him. That was the one problem with the Mass Drivers: Their effectiveness decreased with range. The only way a driver round could penetrate the thick frontal armor of an enemy machine was at close range. A fireball hit the far side of the truck, sending drops of flaming fuel splattering over the top and onto Ha-Ya-To's Gate Defender. Then he heard a distinct whirring sound. He took a step back from the cover and saw both Fire Vultures lifting into the air and training their flamethrowers and shoulder lasers on him. They're going to try and send me running so they can get to easier pickings Ha-Ya-To realized. He would have to stall them. He grinned at the thought.
Ha-Ya-To shifted his weight slightly, bending his knees in preparation for his next action.
"Thrusters." He said sharply, the computer instantly recognizing and executing the orders. He felt the jet thrusters spinning up beneath his feet, grin still spread across his face as engines kicked in.
"Full power!" He yelled. He surged into the air, flames pouring out from his Defenders feet, tearing through the air at the two robots. Fireballs whipped past him as the Vultures tried to intercept him, but Ha-Ya-To was coming too quickly and too suddenly. He shoulder bashed the one on the left without slowing, then whipped back around to bring his canon to bear on the other one. The first Vulture plummeted crazily towards the lower level, and the other jetted straight upwards. Ha-Ya-To started off after the upper one. No need to let the other one get away, though.
"Three, you got one coming down your way."
"Copy that!" Three replied.
Ha-Ya-To tore through the air in pursuit of the Fire Vulture. It quickly leveled out, and swerved back towards the Southern side of the mountain, heading for the safer airspace around the Robot controlled territory. Ha-Ya-To slowed to a stop, and let it go. Keep going, buddy he thought, we'll deal with you later.
"Ha-Ya-To! We've got more incoming!" Dragon-3's voice cut through the radio. Ha-Ya-To turned mid-air to look. Sure enough, two more Fire Vultures were barreling down the Ganchu bridge, but from his position closer to the Robot side of the mountain, Ha-Ya-Ta could see that they weren't alone.
"Dragon squad, fall back to Ganchu gate; we've got Thunder Furies."
He revved his engines back to full power, and rocketed back towards the North side of the mountain. So much for a small skirmish he thought to himself. This fight is just getting started.
A/N
Thanks for reading!
Just a few things that might not be clear from the chapter that I want to clear up. First, the positioning of the bridges. It was kinda hard to explain it in the story, since all the characters already know how it's arranged, but the way that it is arranged is as follows: Ganchu Main is in the middle, Ganchu-1 is top left, Ganchu-2 is top right, Ganchu-3 is bottom right, and Ganchu-4 is bottom left. The numbers start from the left and go clockwise.
Second is the sonar buoy bit. The chasm between the two halves of the mountain are perpetually filled with a kind of mist/dust that obscures each side of the mountain from each other. The reason that they use radar buoys instead normal radar is because it could be backtracked by the enemy and used to target long range artillery strikes. Therefore neither side uses stationary radar so they don't get their bases shot off the mountainside. The buoys are basically balloons with radars on them that transmit data back to Exo-Central only if they see something, making them much harder to pinpoint.
Please review if you get a chance! Thanks!